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INSIGHTS How To Mess Up a Town by James Howard Kunstler The town where I live, Saratoga the 1950s and replaced by strip malls with county road across from the old dump. Springs, New York, like practically huge parking lots fronting on Broadway The reason it was moved, by the way, was every other town in America, is and its adjoining streets. All sorts of inap- because there wasn’t enough parking. Do propriate suburban building forms were you suppose the children cared about the under assault by forces that want to turn it imposed on downtown sites — ridiculous parking? into another version of Paramus, New Jer- one-story structures with blank walls, sur- Saratoga’s plight has been aggravated sey, with all the highway crud, chain store rounded by bark mulch beds and, of by the fact that the northernmost of its servitude, and loss of community that pat- course, acres of parking lots — destroying gateways, Exit 15 of Interstate 87, lies tern of development entails. within the adjoining town of Wilton, Ironically, the forces who are ready to which has aggressively turned the land permit the most radical damage to the THE PUBLIC REALM IS around Exit 15 into a feeding frenzy for town’s historic character consider them- mall builders, national discount stores, selves the most conservative; while the THE PHYSICAL franchise fry pits, and other agents of sub- groups most concerned with preserving MANIFESTATION OF THE urban sprawl in order to pay for its grow- the town’s best features, and even enhanc- COMMON GOOD. ing roster of “revenue-loser” residential ing them, have been branded radical. WHEN YOU DEGRADE subdivisions. Wilton has become the Anti- Until World War Two, Saratoga had THE PUBLIC REALM, AS Saratoga, both in physical layout and eco- the character of a city in the country. Its nomically, its chain stores sucking the business district was a very densely devel- WE HAVE, YOU DEGRADE lifeblood out of our downtown. oped grid of blocks crammed with build- THE COMMON GOOD, Wilton, of course, will have to suffer ings that stood shoulder to shoulder. The AND HENCE YOU IMPAIR the consequences of its heedless and pattern was classic Main Street USA — brainless “growth” — and I believe that though here the main drag is named THE ABILITY OF A suburbia of its type will begin to tank out Broadway. Spoking off Broadway were a GROUP OF PEOPLE alarmingly soon. Still, Saratoga is doing half dozen major feeder streets, all lined INCORPORATED AS A very little to make the best of its true with buildings, all vigorously mixed-use, REPUBLIC TO THINK virtues. I am convinced that Americans with retail businesses, offices, and apart- have literally lost the ability to think about ments disposed in an arrangement that has ABOUT THE PUBLIC their surroundings, and for a specific rea- been the basis for good urbanism since INTEREST. son. Historically Americans have not had a classical antiquity. high regard for the public realm, and this Several mammoth Victorian hotels is a very unfortunate thing, because the gave the town cosmopolitan swagger — public realm is the physical manifestation and fabulous public spaces, along with the all pedestrian interest. The blocks on of the common good. When you degrade renowned racecourse. And of course there either side of Broadway were leveled in a the public realm, as we have, you degrade were the springs. The residential ring mendacious urban renewal scheme that the common good, and hence you impair around this downtown core was devel- left 90 percent of that land in parking lots. the ability of a group of people incorporat- oped to a density of about four to eight Many of the functions of everyday life ed as a republic to think about the public dwellings per acre, on a grid of tree-lined were taken out of downtown and scattered interest. streets, in a readily recognizable pattern out in the countryside where they are only This is why we no longer possess the we might call Small Town USA. Saratoga’s accessible by motor vehicles. Last year it most fundamental notions of civic art — urban edge was clearly defined: beyond was the new junior high school, moved civic art being the effort that we make to East Avenue and West Avenue lay good, three miles out of town along a busy state honor and embellish the public realm in well-farmed farmland. highway, to which students are explicitly order to make civic life possible. This The past forty-odd years, of course, forbidden to walk or ride their bikes. This shows very clearly in the way that we have just about everything has been done to year it was the public skating rink, which treated the streets here in my town of destroy that pattern and dismantle the was removed from the center of town and town. The mammoth hotels were razed in stuck three miles from Broadway out on a continued on next page PLANNING COMMISSIONERS JOURNAL / NUMBER 17 / WINTER 1995 20 How to Mess Up a Town The knowledge necessary to build continued from previous page really great towns that people would Saratoga Springs. Design elements that a delight to live and work in, was fully in European child of twelve would grasp place, was fully possessed by Americans instinctively are completely mishandled in our grandparents’ day. We have here by grownup experts in the design thrown it all into the garbage can. It is as and building professions. much of a struggle for us to regain this For instance, a few years ago when lost knowledge as it is for a stroke victim the great mall incursion began, the town to learn how to speak all over again. We decided to “fight back” by installing Vic- are also in the unhappy position of learn- torianoid lampposts and street benches ing that without a regard for the public on Broadway. Only they made one slight realm, for civic art, or civic life, we will mistake with the benches. They bolted probably not have much of a civilization. them into the outside edge of the side- The future will require us to do things walks facing toward traffic. This funda- better, or the future will belong to other people in other societies. N mental error in thinking that people sit outdoors to watch cars, not other people, James Howard Kunstler is illustrates the pathetic level of civic art as the author of “The Geogra- it is practiced here. To make matters phy of Nowhere,” a book worse, the original problem has become about the economic and incorrectable. As recently as this April, social consequences of sub- urban sprawl, and the members of the Downtown Business need to change our current Association begged the Department of methods of land-use plan- Public Works to move the benches ning. He is the author of around so they faced the sidewalk, and eight other books, all novels, a former editor with the DPW refused on the grounds that sit- Rolling Stone Magazine, and a regular contributor ters might extend their legs and trip to the New York Times Magazine. pedestrians! The most pathetic aspect of all this is that if we can’t solve minuscule problems like benches facing the wrong way, how can we even begin to think about more complicated design issues, such as the way buildings relate to each other and to the street. In this area, by the way, we continue to fail spectacularly. The most important building to be erected on Broadway in this half of the 20th Century was the Ramada Renais- sance Hotel (since bought by the Shera- ton chain). This hotel was designed with no shopfronts on Broadway. Instead, it presents four blank brown steel fire doors (from the hotel’s conference rooms). This is the face that this huge and important building shows to Sarato- ga’s most important street. Naturally, it is a colossal failure as a matter of civic art. The street at that end of town is dead at all times of the day and night, for the simple and obvious reason that there are no destinations for people on foot, no reason to be there. PLANNING COMMISSIONERS JOURNAL / NUMBER 17 / WINTER 1995 21.

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